The Basilica of Saint Peter, the Apostle and first Pope, was built at the foot of Vatican Hill in Rome by Pope Saint Cletus. It has since grown to be the greatest and most impressive church in the world. Fifty thousand people can be accommodated in it. The feast of November 18 commemorates the solemn consecration of the new basilica there by Pope Urban VIII, in 1626. It is on the spot where Saint Peter was crucified upside down in the year 67.
Pope Saint Cletus also built a church over the tomb of Saint Paul-outside-the-walls, on the road to Ostia. This church has been made larger and larger through the years. A great fire destroyed it in 1823. It was rebuilt, and its final structure, as we see it today, was consecrated by Pope Pius IX in 1854, two days after he had defined the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. Saint Paul’s great devotion, after his conversion, was to the Blessed Virgin Mary. His disciple, Saint Luke, wrote the third Gospel which is so Marian. Luke had to have received many details, the Annunciation and Visitation, directly from Our Lady. It was the Blessed Virgin Mary who saw to it that Saint Paul’s name was placed immediately after Saint Peter’s in all the litanies where the Apostles are mentioned. Whenever Saint Paul made a journey he always wanted to return to Jerusalem to see the Blessed Virgin Mary. He spent his whole life in sorrow over the persecution he had inflicted upon Christians in the early days. Saint Paul loved Mary, the Mother of God, with all the ardor of his heart once he had been converted to the true Faith. It was her inspiration which made him the Apostle of the Gentiles, the people who would love her, and took him away from the Jews, the people who would not love her.
See also: Saint Peter – The First Pope.
The courtyard and facade of the Basilica of Saint Paul outside the walls (source)
